At the first speaker meeting of the new Club year in April, David Salt, a local beekeeper, provided a brief history of beekeeping from the first record found as Rock Art in South Africa, the Egyptian tree colonies of around 1400BC to the importance in medieval life for providing candles, honey and mead. He explained how the modern day hive construction came about making it easier to extract the honey and its effect on reducing the impact of diseases.

Members were informed about the way bees live as a colony, triggers for swarming and some explanation for the recent loss of colonies. He encouraged us to improve our environment by creating good habitats for bees with a variety of plants in our gardens that provide nectar starting with crocuses and snowdrops at the beginning of the year and then in the autumn and early winter to encourage some ivy.

President Denise commented that “Soroptimists have been very concerned over the last few years hearing about falling bee populations, so it is good to hear some positive steps we can all take at an individual level. On a national scale, there is a Soroptimist initiative - the Bee Plus Project which is an educational project aimed at raising awareness, stimulating interest in beekeeping, influencing good practice and encouraging support for bee charities. To date there are 91 groups, involving over 10,000 children taking part this year. We have sponsored Birchen Coppice School here in Kidderminster as part of our work with them and they will receive a resource pack with learning and activity tools to use with the pupils.”

At the next Supper Meeting on Thursday 19 May, our speaker is Liz Harvey, a well known local poet.

Visitors and guests are always welcome and for more details regarding the activities and membership of the Club, please call our Membership Secretary on 01299 266101 or email on kidderminstersorop@gmail.com or look at our website link on http://soroptimist-gbi.org